If The Bed Falls In

by Paul Casselle

  “Yes,” Joseph answered with a determined smile, “you know me. You know what I’m capable of.”

  “What does Thandie think about that?”

  “What?” Joseph shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  “Does Thandie feel safe? Are you protecting her?”

  “Okay, look it’s complicated…”

  “Not for her… not any longer.”

  “No,” Joseph conceded, “not for her… but you’re okay, right? We can work together, now.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tilda crashed in from the back seat next to Morrison, “this isn’t some fucking ‘encounter group’. We’re not here to work out our fucking feelings.” She grabbed Morrison by the arm. He pulled away, but she held on to him aggressively. “We need information. We’re all on the same side. So stop pussy-footing around and talk.”

  “Will you please take your hand off me?” Morrison reacted.

  Tilda resentfully removed her grip on him with a grand gesture. She held her flattened hands up to him.

  “There! All right, now?” she said.

  “I don’t think I should say anything,” said Morrison with finality.

  “Morrison,” Joseph said, “look at me… just look at me. Who am I?”

  The captive man studied the face of his imprisoner.

  “… The Spring.”

  “And we work together. We are doing something very necessary, but extremely dangerous, right?”

  “Yes,” Morrison said, stoically.

  “So, why wouldn’t you trust me?”

  Morrison sighed. His exhalation came out in a staccato stream.

  “Because… because… it’s all going wrong… and I don’t know who I can trust anymore… I need time to think.”

  Cyril cleared his throat. Joseph turned his head to him.

  “Maybe, under the circumstances, that’s a reasonable request,” Cyril suggested. “He’s been through a lot. Why don’t we give him some space?”

  Joseph looked at Morrison then back to Cyril.

  “We don’t have time to give him space. We need information now!” Joseph shouted.

  Cyril took Joseph’s arm and looked hard into his eyes.

  “What?” Joseph said angrily.

  “He’s not going to talk like this,” said Cyril.

  “I just need some time to think,” said Morrison.

  “Okay, okay,” Joseph agreed reluctantly after a heavy pause.

  Cyril held a piece of paper out to Morrison.

  “What’s that?” Morrison asked.

  “My mobile number,” Cyril said, gently waving the piece of paper. “Call us when you’ve had time to collect your thoughts.”

  Morrison took the number and placed it into his pocket. Cyril started the car and headed back to the Treasury.

  As Morrison climbed out of the car, Joseph wound his window down.

  “Morrison?” he said, “we need to hear from you soon, okay?” He paused. Morrison stared at him. “And… be careful, okay. Please be careful.”

  The older man relaxed his jaw for the first time since his abduction.

  “I will, Joseph,” he said quietly, “I will.”

  The lunchtime frenzy was causing a bottle-neck at the entrance to the Treasury building. As usual, not enough time was allocated to midday refuelling, in a mistaken philosophy both logistical and cultural, that meal breaks were a waste of productive time. Morrison pushed through the mass of bodies, finally making it into the building.

  The lobby was a little less congested, but not by much. Someone, determined to beat the world record for the shortest lunchtime, bumped into him so hard that it made him wince in pain. He threw an angry glance in the direction in which he believed the culprit to be, but the sea of suits was too deep to distinguish one breaking wave from the next.

  He burst out of the lift onto the fourth floor, and made his way towards his office. His wrist still stung from the impact it had sustained in the lobby. He shook his hand loosely, then held it up for inspection. A small abrasion was evident on the top of his right wrist. He rubbed it vigorously, but it continued to throb.

  As he approached his office door, Kim joined him, matching his determined speed.

  “Is everything okay, Sir?”

  He stopped and looked at her, trying to find a socially acceptable place for his anger. But he knew that this type of mood was all-consuming, and moreover, it was not anger, but acute fear.

  “Fine, fine,” he said tersely, “hold all calls.” He started walking again. “I need to be alone for the next half hour or so.”

  He tried not to slam the door, but the haste with which he grabbed the handle caused people to look up from their desks. He slumped into his high-backed executive chair, and buried his face in his hands. Reluctantly he pressed the intercom on the phone to summon Kim. A few seconds later the door opened.

  “Are you all right, Sir? I thought you didn’t want to be disturbed?”

  He held his arm up.

  “It’s this bloody thing,” he said. Showing her the contusion on his wrist.

  She moved towards him, concern showing in her eyes.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I don’t know,” he whined. “Someone downstairs… bumped into me… I don’t know why it hurts so much. It’s just a bloody graze.”

  “I’ll get some antiseptic, Sir.”

  “Thanks, Kimberly. You’re a good girl.”

  Kim came out of the kitchen holding a bottle of TCP. An imposing figure stood in front of her with two determined looking men standing on each side of him. Neither of them hid the fact that they believed they were something special.

  “Mr Simmons,” said Kim.

  “Are you sure?” Simmons asked plainly.

  “Yes,” she said simply, “he’s your man.”

  She led the three men to Morrison’s office door. She paused.

  “It’s a shame, Sir. I liked him,” she said.

  Simmons reached past her, and opened the door. The four marched purposefully into the office. Kim was the last to enter. Morrison lay motionless; slumped over his desk. His left hand still clutching the wound on his right wrist.

  Edwards owned a small house in the Norfolk countryside. It sat in camouflaged seclusion on one acre of its own land which was augmented by the extensive woodland that surrounded the modest plot.

  Edwards drove his Range Rover along the access road and parked on the hard-standing at the side of the house. He took a large soft bag from the back of the vehicle together with a smaller bag with ‘Team GB’ emblazoned on both sides, then walked quickly to the front door. He went straight to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large Jameson’s.

  An hour later he was still sitting on the sofa, staring into space, but now the glass was empty. He got up purposefully, as if he had rehearsed the move, and went straight to the ‘Team GB’ bag that he had left by the back door. He quietly unzipped it.

  He crossed the short distance between the house and a green/brown ‘hide’ situated just on the edge of the woodland. He often spent hours sitting in the small structure, watching the vast variety of local wildlife, surrounded in the claustrophobic cabin by a selection of well-thumbed books on ornithology and British woodland fauna. He sat and patiently waited. Cloud cover was dense, but the whiteness of the cloudy sky kept visibility good and acuity crisp and distinct.

  Two men made stealthy progress across the grassland adjacent to the house. In their hands they carried large, silver revolvers. Edwards bent down and picked up a competition longbow. He selected an arrow and mounted it onto the weapon. He looked down the shaft of the arrow and, as he had been taught, closed his eyes momentarily, visualising the imminent flight of the arrow. He opened his eyes. The two men were almost in range. They stopped and looked into the windows of the house, then began to move around the perimeter nearer to the ‘hide’.

  Edwards took aim on the man to the left. There was no particular reason for this, it was arbitrary, but one
of them would have to die first. The other needn’t be concerned; a second arrow was waiting at Edwards feet.

  The thwack of the bowstring startled the two men. One spun around like a frightened deer, the other remained bolt upright and motionless. The arrow had entered the front of his chest, but had continued and exited his back, lodging in the brickwork of the house. The second man turned to him.

  “What the fuck was that!?” he asked.

  The injured man turned his head slowly towards his colleague, his eyes simultaneously wide and dulling with every passing second. He opened his mouth, but only a guttural gasp was emitted.

  “What the fuck’s wrong with you?” his friend whispered loudly.

  A dribble of blood swelled from the right side of his mouth. The arrow had not pierced his heart as Edwards had planned, but had instead glanced off of a rib and merely lacerated a ventricle. Blood was now filling the man’s chest cavity with each beat. Death was seconds away.

  Edwards let another arrow fly just as the second target reached out to the first. The arrow, rather than finding a second beating heart, struck the victim’s lower right arm, and like the previous arrow also entered and exited. The man screamed loudly, and dropped his gun. Edwards put the quiver over his shoulder, placed a third arrow onto the bow, and stepped out of the ‘hide’ into full view.

  The lower jaw of the first man was now awash with flowing blood. He was dead, and simply awaited gravity to complete his final decline. As Edwards and the second man eyed each other, the first fell like a tree, crashing to the ground with a sickening crunch.

  The man stared at his friend, then at the two guns that now lay less than a metre away. Edwards raised the bow, and took aim, but fear produced a pronounced shake in his hands. The man backed up in a sad, ungainly stagger. His retreat was arrested by the solidity of the house behind him. Edwards fired the third arrow, but to his surprise his aim was way off; the arrow pinned the man’s left arm to the wall.

  “You fucked with the wrong guy?” said Edwards.

  “So you’re some sort of Olympic marksman or something, are you?” the man said. Edwards looked quizzically at him. The man’s response seemed inappropriate and incongruous. “So,” the man continued, “do you think you can get the next arrow into the exact same spot as this one?”

  He nodded towards the arrow keeping him and the wall in close contact.

  “Probably,” responded Edwards.

  “Go on then. If you’re so good!”

  Edwards could still not understand the point of the conversation, but nevertheless decided to oblige. He let the arrow fly. It hit the man square in the chest.

  “Whoops!” Edwards exclaimed.

  The man expired almost immediately, but before the light went from his eyes, Edwards was sure he detected a smile.

  The sudden noise from behind him came just a split second before the wood axe was brought down with tremendous force onto his head. The blade cleaved Edwards cranium cleanly in two down to the bridge of his nose. The third assailant let go of the axe handle and watched Edwards’ lifeless body fall to the ground.

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  Chapter 19

  Anna Jakes sat outside court number four of the Old Bailey; the Central Criminal Courts set in the heart of London. The building occupied the same site as had the infamous Newgate prison, where condemned criminals were hanged in front of a public gathering in the street outside.

  She had been a practising barrister, and a frequent visitor to the courts, for many years, and so had become blasé about its ancient and bloody history. However, she had never succumbed to complacency in regard to the building’s purpose. She considered herself greatly privileged to practice as a lawyer in such a place; to work at upholding the most valued tenet of civilised society; Justice.

  Although it had become popular to believe and champion the philosophical notion that Justice was blind, a judicial system without vision was anathema to Anna. If anything, Justice needed to have X-ray vision. It had to see beyond petty human foibles, greeds and prejudices. It had to be able to see into the souls of the people it tried. It had to dispense reasoned judgement through wisdom. Furthermore, the modern obsession with equality was as diabolical a notion as Justice being blind. Anna believed firmly that we are most definitely not at all equal; equal opportunities, yes, but we are not equal. We each have a unique set of abilities and we need to be judged on who we are and what those abilities allow us to be. Each case is different. Each person is different. Equality, Anna had often said, is a blunt instrument. It is fairness that gives it a point.

  Anna sat on the wooden bench outside the court. The previous case was running longer than she had hoped, and she could do nothing but wait patiently. Her client sat on a bench next to her. He was with his wife and a friend. Anna smiled professionally at them. They nervously returned the pleasantry.

  Having learnt from Thompson, less than an hour ago, that Morrison and Edwards had been murdered, and that Thandie had met the same fate the day before, she was not feeling at her best. Everyone that looked at her, everyone that spoke to her without an obvious and irrefutable reason, had become suspicious in her heightened state.

  She jumped as her mobile rang. Anna stood and walked down the hall as she answered it.

  “Anna Jakes,” she said into the phone.

  There was a pause. Her stomach churned.

  “Hello!” she said sternly, trying to disguise her nerves.

  “Mrs Law?” said a familiar voice.

  At first she could not place the caller, so her fear immediately leapt to the worse scenario. She wanted to hide. She wanted to run to one of the many policemen that peppered the courts, but she herself was an outlaw. She was planning to assassinate the US president. She could hardly expect the protection of the authorities.

  “Speaking,” she said quietly, “who is this?”

  At that moment her memory came out of hiding; she knew this voice, and it was a friend she had believed she would never hear from again.

  “It’s the Spring,” the voice said starkly.

  “Yes, I know… Are you aware of what’s happened?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Joseph, “I know about Thandie. But I’m back now. I can protect the rest of you.”

  “What!?” Anna said loudly into the mobile. Her voice echoed inside the building, and she looked around, embarrassed. “You don’t know about Ezra and the Voice?”

  “Sorry, what?” said Joseph.

  Anna paused. A flush of hot blood flooded her face. She could feel her back, neck and armpits moisten.

  “If you’re the Spring, you should understand what I’m saying,” she said.

  “Look, Anna,” Joseph explained, “I was held hostage by the CIA… they drugged me… I… I have a… temporary memory lapse… I can’t remember… well, there are some gaps, but it’s coming back to me.”

  “What? Fuck!”

  “Anna, please calm down. I know this is difficult, but it’s what you trained for.”

  “You… don’t remember who Ezra and the Voice are? What, nothing?”

  Whatever he said, and despite her recognising his voice, she wasn’t going to be so stupid as to put real-world names to her colleagues.

  “They were two of our… friends,” she said cryptically.

  “… Another two?”

  “Yes,” Anna replied simply.

  “We need to meet… now,” Joseph insisted.

  Anna looked towards her clients.

  “I can’t at the moment… I’m… stuck in court all day.”

  “Tonight, at six. Will you be finished by then?”

  “Yes, okay,” she said tentatively. “Where?”

  “You remember where we used to meet… every Wednesday?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll meet there. Tonight at six, okay?”

  “Okay,” Anna agreed.

  She took the phone away from her ear, but could hear a tinny voice on the s
peaker.

  “What?” she said, lifting the mobile back to her head.

  “Be careful,” Joseph said. “We need you… so, please, be careful.”

  “Well, of course I’ll be careful,” she replied angrily.

  “No,” said Joseph, “I mean they seem to know more than they should. Don’t take any chances. Really, Anna. No chances at all, okay?”

  She turned to see a uniformed court usher approaching her.

  “Miss Jakes?” he asked.

  Anna slipped the mobile into her jacket pocket. He watched her stow the phone.

  “Can’t get away from those bloody things, can we?” he commented.

  “No…” she said, “Yes, I’m Anna Jakes. How can I help you?”

  “Oh, yes… your case has been delayed a little longer, and the court clerk has asked me to ask you a small favour.”

  Anna frowned, a little confused.

  “The court clerk wants me to…?”

  “… do him a little favour,” he said, “won’t take a minute.” He moved off and beckoned to her with a polite wave of his hand. “There’s someone downstairs the clerk wants you to have a word with.”

  “I don’t understand,” queried Anna, catching the man up.

  The man speeded up causing Anna to almost trot, and making it difficult for her to interrogate him further while they were on the move. He stopped and opened a door.

  “Down here, Miss,” he indicated.

  “This leads down to the cells, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, Miss,” he responded, taking her arm and manoeuvring her roughly.

  Anna shook his hand from her arm, and stood fast.

  “Listen, what’s this about?”

  “I’ve already said, Miss,” he answered, “There’s a man downstairs that the clerk would like you to have a word with.”

  “About what?”

  “Sorry, Miss. Above my pay grade.” He took her arm more gently than before. “Won’t take a mo.”

  Anna followed him down to the cell block below the courts. The illumination was dark and the air a little humid. The guard who normally manned the desk at the entrance to the cells was not at his post.